It is culturally offensive for a woman to ride a bike in Afghanistan. Forget “feeling left out of the men’s peloton” or “getting shafted in the local bicycle shop”. The women who ride in Afghanistan do it at the risk of their own personal safety. They do it as a statement – a very literal statement – of freedom. And now, they propose to do it as sport. On behalf of their country. On borrowed gear and scraped together bikes.

On the motorcyclist who died while “racing,” one of the people who commented in the Merc article said he and a friend were doing 75-80 in the left lane and the guy who died looked like he was trying to fix his seat behind him. So I’m taking the “racing” story with a grain of salt. Like bicyclists, motorcyclists are regularly blamed for the sins of other riders. http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_22815563